Sun 24 July Reigate Priory Won by 4 wkts

A low-scoring thriller. KCC won the toss and bravely, some would say foolishly, elected to field even though we were only 9 strong at the start of this timed game. The good work of a tight opening spell by Gorasiya and Shailendra was continued by Sid Jhunjhunwala and skipper Saurav Sen who kept the run-rate in check, but at 140/3 in 35 overs, Priory had a platform to put on a formidable score. They did not, however, factor in the wiles of Sunil Amar (2/12) and the accuracy of Khush Khan (4/18), as they collapsed to 153 for 6 and then 156 all out, due in large part to a 61-run contribution from Crispin Blunt. An extended tea was taken as attention focused on a minor game being played at KCC’s practice ground in St John’s Wood.

James Pickles and Ledger made a promising start to the chase, taking 6 runs off the first over. Alas, it was to be a false dawn as 6 for no loss became 14 for 4 and thoughts turned to how on earth we would ever be invited back if it were not for our sponsors. Cometh the hour, cometh the KCC middle order – Saad Syed and Sid Jhunjhunwala put on an excellent partnership to steady the innings and chip away at the modest target with some aggressive running, before Bharat Gorasiya and Doug Keay, who had repeatedly demoted himself down the batting order on the pretext of a bad knee, struck some thumping blows to see KCC home with 2 overs to spare.

One thought on “Reigate Priory”

I would suggest that the turning point of the match was when I used my cricketing nous to move from square leg to backward square leg in the sixth over of the game, thereby closing off the main scoring avenue of one of their openers and resulting in his frustrated dismissal shortly after. Needless to say this simple piece of tactical acumen was not suggested by the KCC captain of the day 🙂